How a 2017 trade potentially built the 2025 Finals

It’s June 2017 and Kevin Durant has just been awarded his first Finals MVP as a member of the Golden State Warriors.  The Thunder are desperate to get league MVP Russell Westbrook to sign his 5-year super max extension worth $205 million.  Meanwhile in Indiana, Paul George has demanded a trade he wants to get to Los Angeles.  Instead, Indiana traded him to the Thunder for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonins.  This is the story of how that trade put two teams on the brink of the Finals.

The reaction at the time was that the Thunder had fleeced the Pacers.  Oladipo hadn’t produced like the number 2 overall pick he was meant to be, averaging 16 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists for his career to that point, and Sabonis had a pretty mediocre rookie season.  Although nobody thought George was going to re-sign in OKC, they gave up so little, it was worth the risk.  Then, Oladipo broke out averaging 21.7 points per game over the next season and a half, even pushing the LeBron led 2018 Cavs to a game 7, before he had a devastating leg injury that cut his 2018-19 season short.  He never fully bounced back.  Meanwhile, after a first round exit themselves, Paul George re-signed with the Thunder, not going to Los Angeles to team up with LeBron, who was now a Laker.  After another first round exit, the Thunder were given a life raft to move them out of this era.

The Clippers needed to sign Kawhi Leonard, he was coming off of a Finals MVP after his historic one season with the Raptors.  He told them he wanted to team up with George, get George and he would follow.  As a result, the Thunder traded Paul George to the Clippers for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari (who had a sneaky awesome season in his lone year in OKC), unprotected picks in 2022, 2024 and 2026, unprotected picks via the Heat in 2021 and 2023 (OKC and Miami made a separate deal to turn the 2023 pick into a 2025 pick) and pick swaps in 2023 and 2025 via the Clippers.  It is a huge haul and one that built this Thunder team by netting them SGA and Jalen Williams, who they drafted with the 2022 Clippers pick, but one that the Clippers had to make.  They couldn’t let Leonard go to the Lakers instead of themselves, which he was threatening to do if they didn’t land George. It didn’t work for LA but it was still a deal that they had to make, even if it does end up building a champion in Oklahoma City.

It did work out as well as it could have for the Thunder, however.  Gilgeous-Alexander has turned into the MVP of the league and Jalen Williams is a legit number 2 on a title level team.  They won 68 games this season and are now on the brink of a Finals appearance.  Of course there are other great moves they made, drafting Chet Holmgren at number 2 in the same 2022 draft being one of them, but without either George trade they are not in this position.

The Pacers also are not in this position without the 2017 trade.  After Oladipo’s injury, it was Domantas Sabonis’ turn to break out, he made consecutive All-Star games in 2020 and 2021. In 2021, the Pacers got involved in the James Harden trade that sent Harden to Brooklyn acquiring Caris LeVert for Oladipo.  Then, at the 2022 deadline they traded LeVert to the Cavaliers for a 2022 lottery protected first round pick that converted into a 2023 pick and a 2022 2nd round pick.  Those picks turned into Andrew Nembhard and Ben Shepard, both of which are playing key roles on the Pacers who are up 3-1 themselves.  The big deal was when they traded Sabonis.

When the Pacers traded Domantas Sabonis, Jeremy Lamb and Justin Holiday to the Sacramento Kings for Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Heild and Tristan Thompson, many thought the Pacers did really well.  Haliburton had flashed real signs of stardom in just 109 games as a King, finishing third in the 2021 rookie of the year race.  In 2023, the Kings did win 48 games and were the 3 seed in the playoffs before they were knocked out of the first round by the Warriors.  They haven’t had the same success as Indiana has had since the trade.  Back to back Conference Finals appearances with the Pacers on the brink of the Finals.  Halliburton has turned into a top 10 player in the league and is the best player on a team that is one game away from the Finals.

June 30th, 2017 is a date that will stick with Thunder and Pacers fans for a long time.  It was a deal that started the wheels putting both teams on the brink of the Finals in a way that very few saw coming.